Supporters Direct chief calls on Rangers fans to unite...

[plgsarmy 111]

people should feel free to add any facts to the discussion they are aware of. i'm not trying to make people believe anything re this.

 

me i can see how this happens to people and i can see why they wouldn't want it discussed especially if it's been delt with and paid off.

 

but thats just because i've been through similar. people will see it differently from me.

 

There are very few people who know the facts. We had 2 chartered accountants who agreed that no wrong had been done. Yet we continue to hear these accusations. For the record, Mr Harris was not aware of the full facts when he put his resignation speech onto the Internet.

[the gunslinger 3,366]

It was a hay making exercise for many with a grudge to bear.

[Hildy 0]

Plgsarmy, good luck for the future.

 

I hope the RST can get over any difficulties it is having and play an important part in the future of the club.

[D'Artagnan 173]

There are very few people who know the facts. We had 2 chartered accountants who agreed that no wrong had been done. Yet we continue to hear these accusations. For the record, Mr Harris was not aware of the full facts when he put his resignation speech onto the Internet.

 

So money which should have been working for the RST and their members was in fact sitting in the account of someone else - yet 2 chartered accounts see nothing wrong with this ?

[plgsarmy 111]

So money which should have been working for the RST and their members was in fact sitting in the account of someone else - yet 2 chartered accounts see nothing wrong with this ?

 

It wasn't sitting in anyone's account. It wasn't money owed to the RST but we were going to make a substantial loss over a series of events we had agreed to underwrite. The biggest expense was the Sam English bowl, currently sitting in our trophy room. I complained to Mark as he was on the committee and he agreed to make a substantial contribution towards the loss.

[D'Artagnan 173]

It wasn't sitting in anyone's account. It wasn't money owed to the RST but we were going to make a substantial loss over a series of events we had agreed to underwrite. The biggest expense was the Sam English bowl, currently sitting in our trophy room. I complained to Mark as he was on the committee and he agreed to make a substantial contribution towards the loss.

 

Well that is clearly at odds with Mr Harris' version of events plg

 

I believe it is time that someone clarified exactly what has been going on with the financial affairs of Rangers Supporters Trust (RST).

 

The Board of RST had an opportunity to make full disclosure of the matters that I will explain below in the Accounts or at the AGM last Sunday, 19 September 2010. They failed to take either of these opportunities.

 

I was elected to the Board of RST at the 2009 AGM and appointed as Secretary on 13 February 2010. I resigned as Secretary on 12 August 2010. I remain a member of the Board.

 

It is the Secretary’s duty to sign the Accounts on behalf of the Board. I refused to sign the Accounts for the year ended 5 April 2010.

 

I had prepared a statement to read at the AGM but the Acting Chair refused to let me read it out. I asked RST to publish that statement on Thursday of this past week but they refused because the final version of the auditor’s management letter differs from the one quoted in my statement.

 

I have kept my own counsel on these matters since the AGM but now feel compelled to make these matters known because I consider it my duty as a Director:

 

1. To explain to the members what happened to their money.

 

2. To clarify and correct some ambiguous and inaccurate comments that the current Treasurer, Christine Somerville (plgsarmy) has made on this web site.

 

3. To explain why I resigned as Secretary.

 

Other than Christine I do not know the identity of anyone on this site. The only reason that I am posting this statement on this site is that last Tuesday a friend drew my attention to the thread about the RST AGM. Since then I have become increasingly frustrated by the speculation surrounding these events and my role in them. As RST have refused to publish my statement I will publish it on a separate thread. This will explain the reason for my resignation as Secretary. However you may be interested in the background to these events.

 

At a meeting with the auditors that I attended on 4 August 2010 along with the Treasurer, Christine Somerville and the Treasurer elect, Alison Mueller, Christine stated that sometime between September and November 2008, two cheques were issued to RST by followfollow.com totalling £2,690. These cheques bounced. The monies were not fully repaid (bar £30 still outstanding at the financial year end) until March 2010. This means that followfollow.com had a free loan of Trust monies for the best part of 18 months.

 

Christine has stated in a post on this web site “it was paid off, the majority a few months later”. This would depend on your definition of “a few months”. In fact none of the debt had been paid off by 5 April 2009.

 

Christine has also stated in another post on this web site “However, to be clear, this was not a loan, interest free or otherwise. Knowing the circumstances, our auditors were very clear about that.” Christine is mistaken. The auditors categorised the debt as a loan in their management letter of 10 August 2010 and did so again (twice) when RST put my AGM statement to them this week. The auditors are correct.

 

In fact the first draft of the Auditor’s management letter issued on 9 August 2010 referred only to:

 

• Losses on functions.

 

• Lack of control over expenditure.

 

• Failure to maintain an up to date share register.

 

In my opinion as Secretary the debt gave rise to breaches of Rule 6 regarding the application of our profits and Rules 74 & 75 which refer to conflicts of material financial interest.

 

In the circumstances, I was very surprised that the auditors had not even mentioned the debt and other important matters in their letter so I sent them an email on 9 August 2010 in which I reminded them of:

 

"• Income & Expenditure being received and paid by outside organisations e.g. Erskine Appeal, Sam English Committee, Follow Follow.

 

• The high number of cash transactions and instances where cash income is not banked at all but used to make payments.

 

• The difficulty of allocating income from incomplete records - all income should be banked by the Treasurer in my opinion.

 

• The debt from unpaid cheques last year, which as far as I can understand arose from some combination of the first two factors mentioned above, which means that there were breaches of Rule 6, 74 & 75 at least until the debt(s) were cleared this year."

 

I copied this email to Christine and Alison and neither responded to me.

 

The auditors stated that they were happy to include the additional points and revised their draft to include comments on all these matters as set out in the Statement that I was not allowed to read at the AGM. I attached a copy of the auditor’s revised draft to the resignation email that I sent to all members of the Board on 12 August 2010.

 

On Thursday last, the Interim Secretary advised me that subsequently the auditors dropped the reference to the loan in the final version of their letter based on the legal advice received by the Board. I have asked for sight of the legal advice but this has not been forthcoming. They also dropped all references to the cash transactions; no explanation has been given for that, so one can only speculate as to the reasons for the auditors actions in that respect.

 

It should be noted that the Auditor’s Report issued with the Accounts states that in their opinion the financial statements give a true and fair view of the Society’s affairs as at 5 April 2010.

 

I hope I have clarified these matters but I will do my best to answer any further questions that arise. There are some other inaccuracies and questions posed in the RST AGM thread that I will try to answer as well.

 

Alan S Harris

26 September 2010.

[plgsarmy 111]

Well that is clearly at odds with Mr Harris' version of events plg

 

Perhaps but he was not on the Board when these things happened. Also, we had the auditor present at the AGM to answer any queries on this.

[Zappa 0]

Paul Murray was never credible as the Blue Knights or part of McCollCo; he's one of yesterday's men and I'm sure deep down he knows it.

 

Have to disagree with you on this BH because while I think Paul Murray has definitely made some mistakes, I do completely trust the judgement of shrewd and successful businessmen like Jim McColl, Dave King and Brian Kennedy who have all endorsed and backed Paul Murray over the past couple of years.

[BrahimHemdani 1]

and that's me being generous. i may have said you sought to make something of a situation that simply was not there by being both disingenuous and vague.

 

now i only have marks word for it that he could not afford to pay for tickets after being let down by others. but what we both know is the outstanding money was for tickets to a function.

 

attaching the term loan to this has always struck me as curious at best and nasty at worst.

.

 

An old boss of mine was want to say "Is this a fact, can you prove it's a fact; if you can't prove it's a fact, it is not a fact; so do not say it's a fact when you cannot prove it is a fact.

 

 

Whilst I agree with D'Art that it is semantics to differentiate between "loan" and "debt"; the FACTS are as he described.

 

Let's be absolutely clear, it is a FACT that I can prove that the word "loan" was first used in connection with the matter described, by the auditors; initially I used the word "debt" because in acccounting terms that is exactly what it was; the amount appeared as an unspecified debtor in the draft accounts and the exact nature of the debt was only revealed by then Treasurer, Christine Somerville, when I asked the question at the audit meeting.

[the gunslinger 3,366]

and what was the nature of it?

 

because that's important.